Dhimmis At Ground Zero?

“Call me jaded or unsentimental,” wrote one of my readers, “but the World Trade Towers were ugly Rockefeller buildings built by the abuse of eminent domain (my friend’s dad lost his job at a private firm there), and taxpayer theft and operated at a great loss to the taxpayers. They were known mainly for a dreadful remake of King Kong. While I mourn the loss of 3000 Americans, I am not about to elevate the Towers into the Beit Hamikdash (The Temple in Jerusalem).”

My unorthodox patron was responding to news that the American Society for Muslim Advancement (quite literally) plans to erect a “Mega-Mosque” at Ground Zero. The advancing Muslims say that this is a peace offering—a center intended to foster Muslim tolerance and temperance. Most Americans, well-represented by the energetic crowds that pitched up to protest this affront, don’t believe them. (Taqiyya anyone?)

Neither do I. To count as a peacemaking offering, the “Sulcha” must be considered conciliatory by those it is intended to pacify.

Still, there is something to be said for my reader’s refusal to turn the spot into Solomon’s Synagogue. The Twin Towers did not originate as pantheons of individualism and creativity. Their architect, Minoru Yamasaki, was no Howard Roark. The Towers were the urban renewal scheme of the New York state legislature and the Port Authority. The dubious David Rockefeller was in on it too, fresh from Harvard, and armed with a thesis on Fabian socialism and the counsel of pals such as spy-to-the-Soviets, Alger Hiss.

Land for this statist scheme was indeed acquired through eminent domain. That’s when the authorities seize private property for the “common good.” According to Wikipedia, thirteen square blocks of low rise buildings in Radio Row were cleared to make way for the construction of the World Trade Center. Radio Row had been a “warehouse district on the Lower West Side of Manhattan, New York City,” consisting of several blocks of bustling, if unglamorous, electronics stores.

This diminishes the Towers as symbols of freedom and individualism, but does nothing to lessen the lives lost there to Islam’s emissaries. In the annals of Islam, the erection of minarets and mosques on foreign lands has always been a triumphal act of supremacy. Unless an Islamic Reformation has come and gone without notice, the mega-mosque project is the latest installment in the annals of encroaching dhimmitude. Put crudely, the construction of a mosque at the spot where Americans suffered a defeat by Muslim aggressors is a bitch slap to the subjugated dhimmis-in-training.

Less clear, however, is the course of action protesters intend to pursue. Defeat this act of hostility, and the invasive species will take root elsewhere. Yet, restricting acquisitive property rights in a free society should never be entertained. As far as I can tell, then, all anti-Mega-Mosque activists are requesting is kindness and consideration from those they regard as conquistadors.

How dhimmi.!

Such pleas remind me of the victim impact statement so popular in our Courts. How humiliating and futile is it to plead for contrition from sadists who’ve amply proved they are incapable of such sentiment, and derive sadistic pleasure from watching their victims squirm.

There is simply no real intellectual force, much less corporeal force, behind a demand for sensitivity from those you believe to be worse than insensitive. Sadly ─ and as much as I approve of actions wishing to peacefully prevent this religious monstrosity from replacing a statist one ─ theirs is nothing more than frenetic Brownian motion.

Alas, Muslim culture is a macho one; they purchase property and raise building to their faith and its political mission. Western contemporary culture has become a feminine one; we cry publicly, perhaps punch the air in impotent rage, and carry signs asking our S&M masters (elected officials included) to show us some love.

Like all assorted 9/12 projects, mega mosque resistance simply sustains the state of heightened emotional arousal that arose in the aftermath of 9/11. Having examined only their feelings, Americans campaigning against occupiers in-the-making have failed to examine what it is they are really saying and, then, say it out coolly and clearly, and then take cover.

If Christians raised a cathedral at Liberty St. and Church St., most Americans would not mind. If the Hari Krishna set up a place of worship in the vicinity, and bobbed up and down the exact complex in Lower Manhattan, Americans would smile benignly. Ditto if a Jewish tabernacle were to be erected around the corner; this reaction would not have occurred.

It’s in the faith of Islam and its adherents that Americans have no faith.